


Not All Who Wander

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Awkward Crush, F/M, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 06:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5575663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's sorry to see the dress go. Sorry to see she's twisted her hair up in an all-business knot. No trace at all of the flirty, careless curls she'd been sporting at Drago. He's sorry and he's . . . something else. A thing he can't put a name to that gnaws at him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Three-shot AU insert for The Third Man (2 x 14)

 

He's sorry to see the dress go. Sorry to see she's twisted her hair up in an all-business knot. No trace at all of the flirty, careless curls she'd been sporting at Drago. He's sorry and he's . . . something else. A thing he can't put a name to that gnaws at him. Something that makes him want to needle her.

He's about to. About to make a crack about how her smoky, dramatic eye make up should really pop under the harsh fluorescents inside the box or note that even Noel DuPreez and his tweedy cardigan would surely be more forthcoming if she flashed a little shoulder.

He's just on the verge of something along those lines, but she's bearing down on him in denim and one of her standard-issue vee-necks, and there it is again. That gnawing sensation that's more than being sorry to see the dress go. He can't pin it down, though. He's distracted by the urgency of her gait. The way the heels of her comparatively sensible shoes ring out on the tile.

"Castle!"

Her voice is low and there's something sharp in it. Something that stills his own tongue and has him bracing for whatever it is that has her bristling with unease.

But Esposito steps into her path. Out of nowhere, as usual. They're set up with DuPreez and everything about this is time sensitive. The pet shop and the smuggling are out of their jurisdiction twice over, and none of them has any idea who might be moving in when.

Still, he catches her elbow. Shelters her from view and makes it look like it's just him being him. Insisting on opening the door or dragging his heels for some dumb joke. That's what it must look like to her when her head snaps up.

But he puts himself in her line of sight. Presses his fingers gently to let her know he feels the tension running through her. "Beckett. What is it?"

She blinks at him in surprise, and there's something else there for less than a second. A curtain whisking open and closed again as she looks him up and down. It gnaws at him, too, whatever it is she didn't mean for him to see.

It's enough to make him take his own life in his hands. To ignore the brisk, silent shake of her head and keep his feet planted. To pull out her first name as he pitches his voice lower still. "Kate."

"Nothing." She pulls herself free as if she's just realized that she can. That she could have all along. "It's nothing."

She shoulders her way past him. Flips whatever switch it is she has as she makes her way through the door, but he knows the difference. He knows it's not nothing.

* * *

 

"You don't have it." She's closing the last of her desk drawers. Closing, not slamming, and everything about her body language tells him the distinction is important. Vital.

"Have it?" The look she gives him stops him cold, hand on the back of his chair.

"My bag." She's not snapping at him, any more than she's slamming around her desk, but she's angry. More than angry, and it hits him low in the gut. An icy precursor to something worse than fear. "I handed it to you."

"At the pet store." The words rise up. Memory rises up. Annoyance, less that she'd shoved it at him so casually than the fact that it hadn't occurred to him to _be_ annoyed until a second before the glass shattered and everything was chaos. "I . . . had it," he says weakly. He looks down at himself. At his own hands, like it might suddenly appear. "I must have set it down."

"You must have or you did?" It's another switch flipped. Interrogation mode all of a sudden. "Inside or out? Did you leave it at the crime scene or did it last all of two seconds out on the street, Castle?"

"I think . . ." He scrambles for memory. The feel of satin in his hands. The chill metal of the clasp. "I had it."

"You _had_ it." She straightens abruptly, her spine stiff with fury. "And now it's gone."

"Inside," he says with far more certainty than he feels. "The spider. I must have dropped it . . ."

He trails off. The look on her face stealing the words away. It's absolutely blank. Flat with something well beyond anger. Something entirely out of proportion to the loss of the kind of tiny, pointless clutch he's surprised she even has. He straightens, too. Gives in to the urge to push back, though warning bells are sounding somewhere in the distance.

"It's not like I _meant_ to lose it," he snaps.

"Meant to," she repeats, the syllables brittle. "No, Castle. You never mean to."

She's going then. Practically gone before shock and confusion and that persistent gnawing sensation will even let him move.

"I'll replace it." He lurches after her, but he's ten steps behind and she's already huddled in the far back corner of the empty elevator, her face tipped down and turned toward the wall. "I'll cancel your credit cards and . . . whatever. Beckett!"

He calls out one last time, fearful and namelessly upset. Annoyed or trying to be, because he doesn't get what the big deal is. Her keys are in her hand, and he knows damned well she'd dug her backup piece out of the bag and her her badge out from . . . wherever it is she keeps her badge when she's out on the town.

_Out on the town_

He pulls up half a step from the swiftly closing doors. A flicker of images stops him absolutely. The red dress. The delicate cream shawl on her shoulders and his mother's hands settling the flashy costume piece against the elegant sweep of her collar bones. _Pretty._ More than pretty, but not quite right. It comes together the instant the doors bump together.

The ring. She's not wearing her mother's ring.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He raises up on his toes, straining to see over the bobbing crowd of gawkers. He scans desperately for a familiar face on the right side of the tape. Any familiar face, but it's been hours and these aren't their people. Her people, he thinks miserably as he sinks back down on his heels."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three-shot AU insert for The Third Man (2 x 14)

It's utter chaos at the pet shop. Worse than that, it's chaos that extends half a city block in all directions. He walks the perimeter, looking for a point of entry and wondering whether whatever precinct this is had to deplete its reserves of yellow tape to cordon things off.

He raises up on his toes, straining to see over the bobbing crowd of gawkers. He scans desperately for a familiar face on the right side of the tape. _Any_ familiar face, but it's been hours and these aren't their people.

_Her people_ , he thinks miserably as he sinks back down on his heels.

A black suburban pulls up. Another one to join the three already hulking at angles to one another in the narrow street. Feds spill out, slamming their doors with authority, and there's a posturing kind of changing of the guard. That would usually interest him.

A woman who's all of five feet and a hundred pounds takes point. She gestures and barks orders. Wins a brief stand off with the NYPD lead in record time. It's impressive. _She's_ impressive. He has to admit that, even as the tide of hopelessness rises in him. He might have talked his way past a uniform, even from another precinct. _Might_ have.

He's traded on his fame before. Not always successfully, but when it works, it's more than worth a blow or two to the ego. So he's nudged his fair share of New York's finest toward name recognition to buy the time of day from someone with better things to do. To fill his head and his notebook with the ins and outs she has nothing to do with. Where things go from the crime scene. How they get there and who makes sure of it. Mundane details he wants to get right. _Needs_ to get right, because he wants her to like the books.

He wants her to like _him_ , but that's over now. He lost her mother's ring.

* * *

 

The sea of blue gives way to black and grey and navy. Muted tones and pointedly unremarkable cuts to the pants and skirts and jackets of dueling federal agencies.

_Customs. Fish and wildlife._

He runs through the litany inside his own head. Adds a few guesses as to who might show up to the party and watches a while. Stands there, defeated, with his arms hanging at his sides. He should go. He's got zero currency here, and it's hopeless. He knows it's hopeless, but he can't make his feet move.

"Excuse me." The voice comes from off to his left. Terse and perfunctory. Bodily calling him back to the moment as the sharp corner of something catches him in the shoulder.

"Sorry," he mutters, too miserable to do anything but stumble two steps back.

"Watch it!" The shrill words are close enough to make his eardrum ache.

"Sorry." He says it again to no one in particular. The crowd is too thick around him to figure out who he might've stepped on.

He turns in place, drawing in his elbows and trying to make himself small. It's pointless, though. Something's happening and he's caught in the middle of it. He's swept back along with everyone else. All the other civilian looky-loos giving way to a sudden line of shoulder-to-shoulder uniforms, and just beyond it, a parade of translucent cubes.

It's an odd sight at first. Eerie and indecipherable as they bob along, awkward and seemingly unaided. He finds himself looking for strings. Tipping his head back and looking up for some giant puppet master.

In his misery, he can't make sense of it. Can't figure out what it is or how it's happening until he catches sight of a single head and shoulders towering above everything. _LT_ he thinks at first, and he almost calls out. But it's not LT. It's a string of cops, in and out of uniform, from whatever precinct this is.

A string of cops carrying evidence bins.

 

* * *

He makes his way around one van, then another. It's a field of blue and white and he wonders if they've cleared out the store entirely. He hopes they have, and that sits high in his throat. Hope and determination, even though it's overwhelming. Even though a dozen bins have already disappeared though sliding side doors and another van is pulling up.

It's not the right color, and the few people who spill out have a different demeanor entirely. Not cops, federal or otherwise, he thinks. _Animal Care and Control._ He registers the words in some distant corner of his mind as he picks his way through the crowd. Attaches them to yet another round of push-and-push-back breaking out around him.

_responsibility to see to the welfare . . ._

_. . . major crime, crossing multiple jurisdictions . . ._

_no expertise whatsoever in caring for . . ._

_. . . coordination at this scale . . ._

It's to his advantage. The chaos buys him time, though he hardly knows what to do with it. The bins are everywhere. Stacked three high on the curb. Gaping open at the tailgate of one of the ECU vans, and he has no idea where to start.

"I know you. Number . . . five, was it?"

It's just a string of words at first, hardly audible above everything else. But the words click together somehow. A long beat and he realizes they're directed at him.

"Nine." The answer comes out like a confession. One he hadn't counted on making. Embarrassment pulls him around. Misery and a deep-seated need to make himself suffer. "Haven't made the top five in a few years."

On any other day, it might sound like flirting. Like he's fishing for a compliment or something, but here and now, it's nothing of the kind. His mouth moves, and there's an urgent grinding of gears in the back of his mind. A desperate metallic taste in his mouth.

It all clicks together and roots him to the spot as he takes in the woman behind the definitely bored, definitely offhand comment. She's tall. Not Beckett tall, but there's something of the same look about her. A sliver of that _don't-fuck-with-me_ vibe, but she's young. A rookie, he guesses from the way the streetlight bounces off her nearly pristine nameplate.

_McVey_

He flips a switch of his own as he catches up with himself. Realizes this might be his in and summons up smile for all the good it does him.

"What do you do again?" She casts a brief glance over him and quickly away. Her tone makes it clear that she's killing time. That she's scanning the scene, eager for literally anything better to do other than talk to him.

"Writer."

It's all that comes out when he opens his mouth. A single word when he should be talking fast. Charming her and getting her on his side, but he's not at all up to it. He's mired in guilt and it feels sleazier than usual. Trading on his fame or trying to.

"Writer?" She's suddenly interested. Suddenly _really_ interested and, _God,_ she's young. "That guy from the twelfth! You're him."

"Him?" His head swings up. He blinks at her, genuinely confused. _That guy from the twelfth._ It's not exactly how he thinks of himself. Not exactly how anyone thinks of him.

"Cosmo. You're the ride along!" He's completely taken aback by it. Her sudden exuberance and the awestruck look that makes her look years younger still. "You know Detective Beckett!"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Putting the final polish on the last chapter. Still hopefully up tonight. Thank you.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It must have been evidence, and he hates the way his fingers twitch at the plot point. As he wonders how she got it back. How she'd get it back now, or if she'd even be able to in this mess. His mind runs with the story. With a dozen worst-case scenarios that have her desperately calling in favors. Breaking the rules when that doesn't work, and he can't let it slip through his fingers. He can't."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three-shot AU insert for The Third Man (2 x 14). Final chapter.

 

It's closing in on dawn by the time they find it. She's worked hard. They both have, but it's no more than he deserves, and he's grateful. She's pulled out her notebook and ushered him to the tape line and back again once nobody's looking. She's kept him in the game and pawed through bin after bin by his side, rapping out questions every once in a while. About what she's like. What it's like in homicide. If anyone gives her shit. If anyone even dares.

He answers, guarded at first. Strangely protective of her privacy and a little jealous, too. Maybe a little jealous, though there's an odd kind of relief tucked inside a few weary hours, and finds himself telling her what it's like to watch from the sidelines.

He finds himself working it out as she listens—rapt—to his side of the story. How they respect her. Esposito and Ryan and every uniform he can think of. Montgomery, of course. They respect her, and even the people who live to make her life miserable _don't_ usually dare to give her shit.

He enjoys telling it like this. To someone who admires her so openly. Idolizes her and wants to _be_ her when she grows up. It makes his heart hurt a little to see it written all over the young woman's face, and still, it's an odd kind of relief.

"Mr. Castle."

"Rick," he tells her for the tenth time. He starts to but it dies away when he sees the careful rise of her hands from the depths of the bin.

"That's it," he says. It's pointless. Obvious, and still he can't quite believe it. She takes a step closer to him so their bodies and the van door shield it from view. His palm comes down hard on the grey edge closest to him. He nearly up ends the bin, weak with relief.

It's short lived, though. McVey's face darkens as she lets the bag unroll. As the purse sways between them.

"Evidence. Evening bag," she reads off the front. Her voice sounds mechanical. Like she's sounding out words in some unfamiliar language. She looks up at him in something like horror. "It's sealed. Evidence."

His stomach drops, twisting along the way. It's not evidence, except it is. Worse, still, it was. Something he's never thought of until now, and he hates the memory of his own voice and hers.

_A robbery?_

_No. She still had her money and purse and jewelry._

It must have been evidence, and he hates the way his fingers twitch at the plot point. As he wonders how she got it back. How she'd get it back now, or if she'd even be able to in this mess. His mind runs with the story. With a dozen worst-case scenarios that have her desperately calling in favors. Breaking the rules when that doesn't work, and he can't let it slip through his fingers. He can't.

"The purse is evidence." His voice is smoother than it's been in hours. Calmer as he flips the switch again, and it works this time. He draws his finger down the empty boxes beneath the neat block caps. "Evening bag." He gives McVey a sly grin. Hates himself a little more, but he can live with that. He's not leaving empty handed. "They haven't opened it. And there's no reason anyone would miss it."

Her jaw twitches. She's hardening. Remembering what she is for the first time in hours. A cop, not his partner in crime, even if he _does_ ride along with Beckett.

"Please." He drops the act entirely. Has to, because he lost her mother's ring. "Officer . . . Therese." He feels another pang of self-loathing. Pushes right through it. "I can't tell you what this means to her."

It's truth. Terrible, literal truth, because he _won't_ tell her. Because nothing—not even the fact that she wants to be Kate Beckett when she grows up—could make him tell. It must be all over his face, though. The gist of it anyway, because she's sliding a careful finger under the seal. She's gathering up a fold of plastic to snap open the clasp. She's fishing it out, endless links of gold and—an eternity later—the tiny stone glinting in the streetlight.

"For Detective Beckett," she says, pushing it into his hand like it burns her. It's gruff, the words and gesture both. She's all business, sealing the bag again and replacing everything in the bin, exactly as it was.

His mouth opens and shuts. He wants to offer her something. To make some promise that might mean something. But with the weight in his fist—the almost nonexistent weight of the ring and the coiled chain—he can't imagine what that might be.

He can't imagine.

* * *

 

He's at the twelfth before he's really decided to be there. The duty sergeant's buzzing him through the bullet-proof glass door, and he's waving mechanically before he actually realizes that he's there.

He stabs the up button by the elevator for lack of anything better to do. Because the duty sergeant's looking at him a little strangely and he might as well.

The bullpen is all but empty. The sky is only just lightening, and everything is neat and strange in that in-between way that signals a blessedly quiet few hours.

He makes his way to her desk. Hovers there, even more at a loss than he was down in the lobby. He can't just leave it here. Has no intention whatsoever of letting go anywhere but directly into her hands, but it'll be hours before she's in. _Hours_ , and he feels sick wondering how she's passed the time.

He doesn't hear the elevator ding. Not consciously, any more than he registers the sound of her comparatively sensible shoes ringing out on the tile.

"Castle."

She doesn't seem surprised to find him there. She doesn't seem angry or much of anything other than exhausted. Completely wrung out and less than she should be. It scares him. The pale canvas of her face in all its effortless neutrality. It reminds him of coming back not that long ago.

_You don't have to explain yourself._

_I don't?_

_No. See, I don't care anymore._

It makes him reckless. His hands shoot out to take hold of hers, both in one. He holds them there, speechless, and she's no help on that front. Her eyes go wide. She's too shocked to even pull away. To even say his name.

"I'll replace it. The purse and everything. The cash and your cards and the lipstick and whatever weird tin of mints you had in there." Some kind of damn bursts. He's babbling. Desperate to fill what might be the last silence between them with as many words as he can, but he stumbles when it comes down to the ring. He chokes, literally and figuratively. "I got this, though. I'm sorry. Beckett, I'm _really_ sorry. But I got it back."

She doesn't say anything. His hands fall away and her fist closes around it so quickly she can't even have seen it. She doesn't say anything, and there's nothing left for him to do but go. He does, somehow.

Maybe it's penance. Maybe it's that lingering need to suffer that carries him toward the elevator. Pushes the button and carries him to the back corner. Whatever it is, he goes. He's going, but her fist shoots between the doors a quarter second before they close. She knocks them aside and leans into the rubber bumper, ignoring the alarm when buzzes angrily. They both ignore it.

"It's a knock off." She's trying for casual. Trying to play it off like the last few hours haven't been hell. It might pass with anyone else, but he sees the way her lips are pressed hard together. He sees the up and down of her throat as she swallows hard. "The purse. I didn't have anything that . . . little and stupid. Had to run down to Canal on my way to the restaurant."

"Rookie move, Beckett." It's a little bit of a croak. He swallows hard himself, playing it off, too, though he's not sure either of them should be. "Could've shaken me down for the real thing."

"Could have," she agrees, laughing a little. "But this'll do." She says it quietly. Raises her hand and lets it drop again.

"Hope so," he says simply.

The buzzer falls abruptly silent. He looks up, half expecting her to be gone. More than half expecting the doors to close on just a glimpse of her walking away. But she's leaning back into the opposite corner of the elevator. The bottom drops out of the world. One floor, then two, and he wonders what they're doing. It's three floors and the lobby. They're walking out together and the duty sergeant gives them both an absent wave.

They hit the sidewalk. They slow, then stop, in step with each other. It's a relief. Enough of one that he risks a side-long look at her. She's standing in the sunlight with her head tipped forward. She's looking down at the fist pressed hard to her own midsection, the ring still clutched tight in it.

He wants to take it back from her. He wants to turn her gently by the shoulders and clasp it safe around her neck. He wants to lift her hair free of the chain and whisper _There_ against her ear as her fingers rise to settle the ring against her skin.

He does nothing of the sort. Of course he doesn't. He gives her the story instead. A start on it, anyway.

"It was evidence," he says. Another confession he doesn't really want to make. He's sorry for his part in it. For the weight another piece of history must add to the burden, but he owes her the story at least.

"Figured." She risks a side-long look of her own. A half smile, and he knows suddenly that she spent the hours between then and now waiting for the sun to come up. Waiting for it to be late enough to call anyone and everyone trying to hunt it down. "Do I event want to know what you did?"

_Corrupted a cop._ It's the first thing that rises to his lips, and it's not exactly a joke. He thinks of McVey—this kid who idolizes her—and bites it back. He picks up the thread of the story.

"Met a fan," he says, and suddenly they're walking.

"A _fan._ " She stops for the light at the corner and turns to him. Gives him a full on eye roll. "Yours or Nikki's?"

"Yours, actually, Detective." The light changes. He nudges her elbow with his own. "All yours."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Wrote the ending. Then rewrote it half a dozen times. Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Just editing the other two chapters. Should be up tonight. Thanks.


End file.
